What do people think about Bitcoin?

You're so sure Bitcoin is worthless dogshit, why not make money?

Don't actually possess the courage of your convictions I suppose?

 

Because for one, I don't short anything. It doesn't fit my risk profile.
I invest in ETFs and solid growth companies.

And two, why would I want to screw around with a highly speculative asset and to make it riskier.....short it. pssh.

 

This kinda touches on something I mentioned earlier, but yeah...these "Bitcoin explained!" videos that allegedly make it crystal clear why Bitcoin is so great....don't do a great job of explaining why Bitcoin is so great.

On the other hand, I can watch a video/podcast from folks like Dan Olson, Adam Conover, Hank Green, Ben McKenzie, Molly White, David Gerard, Nicholas Weaver, etc., and to me, they make the flaws of Bitcoin (and crypto in general) very clear.

Given some of the claims here, I'm curious why I'm not hearing about these amazing perks of Bitcoin outside of threads like this. I listen to popular & award winning science podcasts that literally discuss the complexities of energy production, energy story, problems with renewables, etc., on a near weekly basis, and I've yet to hear them mention anything Bitcoin related as something to be excited about (and they get hugely excited about new ways to make concrete). I've yet to hear my progressive political podcasts promote Bitcoin as a way to help with income inequality. Etc.

We don't need to break down Dan's 2+ hour long video into 40 different points that can each generate 1000+ words of debate. I mean...we could. But we probably all have better things to do that something like that.

Besides, it would be more much worthwhile IMO to convince folks like a Dan Olson that these benefits of Bitcoin are legit. Convince those folks, and I'd be more interested in seeing them explain it vs random crypto bro on Youtube.

 

I am.... I have a few savings accounts... a 401k.... stocks.... My money/wealth is tied to the non BTC "economy".

 

Do you see a clear cut difference between Bitcoin and all other 'cryptocurrencies'?

 

Ever heard the saying “A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is still putting on its shoes.”?

Tossing aside "crypto in general" (going beyond BTC opens up an insane can of worms), it takes hundreds if not thousands of hours to properly understand what Bitcoin is, what it does, and what implications that has for everything from energy to security to finance.

By contrast, it takes little to no time at all to say something like "Bitcoin is bad for the environment/uses too much energy" and have that effectively land with any layperson. It takes a lot more time and effort to understand why this is not true. This thread is a perfect example of the phenomenon repeating itself over and over.

Also, lets put Dan Olson's video to bed once and for all. In that 130 minute video he spends less than 5 minutes talking about Bitcoin. Of that time, his critiques of BTC are as follows (direct quote here):

"Bitcoin was structurally too slow and expensive to handle regular commerce" -- This was true but no longer

"As far as banking is concerned, Bitcoin was never designed to solve the problems created by the banking industry, only to be the new medium by which they operated. The principal offering wasn't revolution, but at best a changing of the guard, the gripe is not with the outcome of 2008, but the fact you had to be well connected to get in on the grift " -- Absolutely untrue. Bitcoin solves several of the primary issues with centralized and traditional banking. Instant settlement, no counterparty risk, lower fees, no rehypothecation, no inflation, no counterfeiting, permission-less, uncensorsable, and on and on.

"Even the change of the guard is an illusion, big money assholes like the Winklevoss twins were some of the big names to jump onto crypto where they remain to this day... (Insert long list of people in the cryptocurrency space whom Dan doesn't like for one reason or another)... Some of the largest institutional holders of cryptocurrency are the exact same investment banks that created the subprime loan crash. Rather than being a reprieve to the people harmed by the housing bubble, the people whose savings and retirements were unknown to them being gambled on smoke, crypto became the new playground for smoke vendors." -- Two major things wrong here. 1) Guilt by association and 2) Conflating BTC with 'crypto'.

"Cryptocurrency does nothing to address 99% of the problems with the banking industry, because those problems are patterns of human behavior. They're incentives, they're social structures, they're modalities, the problem is what people are doing to others, not that the building they're doing it in has the word 'bank' on the outside." -- Again, wrong. Bitcoin never set out or promised to be an end to humans lying to each other. Further, the problems with banks go far, far beyond 'patterns of human behavior'. Fiat/trad banks as a service/technology are simply inferior to Bitcoin.

"In addition to not fixing problems, bitcoin also came with a pretty substantial drawback ... Critics pointed out that (POW) created new problems. Adversarial validation would deliberately incur escalating processing costs, which would in turn generate perverse structural incentives that would quickly reward capital holders and lock out individuals who were not already obscenely wealthy ... No matter what bitcoin future was envisioned, in the here and now, computer hardware can be bought with dollars. Rather than dismantling corrupt power structures this would just become a new tool for existing wealth... and that's exactly what happened." -- This is only a valid criticism if you believe equitable wealth redistribution should be the goal of a new asset/currency. Bitcoin is not supposed to redistribute wealth equitably. That's a terrible idea and Bitcoin was never supposed to do this (at least not in this manner, it does prevent wealth concentration that occurs via inflation however, which is much better both practically and morally IMO).

"And don't worry, we're not forgetting the power requirements ... (insert the same "but it uses too much energy" arguments here)" -- This has already been addressed multiple times throughout this thread, so no need to revisit.

There, that's the entirety of the video's anti-BTC arguments. Extremely brief and even less compelling. The video does a great job of describing the problem with NFTs, but absolutely ***** the bed on BTC.

Because we're very early.

Progressives have a kneejerk totemic reaction to BTC because it has libertarian roots. There are several progressive arguments for BTC though.

LOL. Oops

Eventually everyone will be convinced because they won't have a choice. Better technology supplants inferior technology. Hard money washes out soft money. Always.

 

Ever heard the saying...what's popular is not always right and what's right is not always popular? Better tech doesn't always supplant inferior as long as adoption for inferior is higher. Tons of better tech has died because people didn't get a f.

I've said this early on, BTC bois haven't convinced the average person why it's the next best thing and y'all's argumentative know-it-all attitude might be the downfall of it.

Crypto and BTC go hand in hand to most people. So whatever flaws crypto in general has, will get associated to BTC whether true or not.
Once that message is spread it's very hard to clean up. You got a group of gangster and fraudsters and you are trying to convince people one of them is actually Jesus. Maybe but ....still a gangster though..

no. it hasn't. you keep saying it doesn't....means it's true.

 

This is the unfortunate truth, and largely why I don't evangelize anymore. If a person can not understand a difference between Bitcoin and all the other cryptocrap out there, they surely are not going to understand the complexity of the global monetary system. I can explain the former rather easily. Nobody truly understands the latter. . . . well Major can. he knows everything

 

That saying sounds a lot more pro bitcoin than you probably realize.

Good luck getting far in life with that thinking. I'm sure the losing horses appreciate your support.

I could only dream to be so powerful. Like I said already, it isn't up to anyone to explain it to you, because you will be forced to convert eventually the same way you don't send letters via pony express or use leeches for medicine anymore. I don't really care whether you go now or later, all I can do is give you the advice and see if you get off your ass and try to learn something.

Yeah, lazy uninformed people will always exist. Sucks to be them. Anyone honest and curious enough learns the difference. Those that don't deserve what they get.

I'm still waiting on an actual argument to be presented.

The energy debate hinges on your perception of bitcoin's worth.

Saying "it uses X energy!" is not an argument. You have to prove that "X energy" is too much.

If you do not value bitcoin then no amount of energy will ever be justifiable.

So, the floor is yours, explain to me why bitcoin is not worth it.

 

The first step is understanding money. What makes something money, what problems can exist with money, and how problems with money end up manifesting in society.

After you understand that, understanding bitcoin VS crypto/fiat becomes a lot easier.

You can tell quite readily who in this thread has done even the tiniest amount of thinking about this question and who has not.

 

Do I see clear differences? Sure. Do I think there are significant differences between their core ideas? That's debatable IMO.

But it also doesn't really matter what I think.

I can understand not wanting to be associated with the rest of crypto (duh!), but one point I'm making is that for a lot of folks (myself included), the differences aren't that meaningful. And you don't have to try to convince me. I'm just making the point that this is a problem. I'll probably go into this some more in my responses below.

For the saying, yes I'm aware of it (or at least a variation of it). And I'm sure this might shock you, but I actually think of this exact idea when I see pro-BTC claims.

Based on your response, I'm assuming you're claiming that these folks/sources I've listed (including myself) have *not* put in the hundreds/thousands of hours to properly explain what Bitcoin is/etc.

I'd say that's an incorrect claim. I can definitelly say that about myself, and I'm fairly certain most (if not all) of the sources I listed have done at least as much research, if not more (likely with much better quality research, especially since they'd have better resources...including various field experts).

But OK. Sure. We all fell for the lie. I don't know how we all managed to avoid the lies about vaccines, NDEs, AIs, room temperature superconductors, climate change, energy, and other incredibly complex ideas, but somehow just screwed up with Bitcoin. Somehow that process for every other thing failed miserably here *and* only here. And we're wrong.

OK.

Well I think that's a problem. So again my point is that pro-BTC need to do a much better job of making these benefits clear. It's great you all are 100% convinced. But others are not. Do better. And yes, I'm saying everything presented so far (including everything in this thread) is not sufficient. That might be hard to believe, but again, if the goal is to have this take of, it will be necessary to do better.

Or just do nothing and assume it will just magically happen....somehow. I guess we can do that, though I'd like to think there's a better route than that.

Fake Edit: Oh and before I see something like "well those people just don't know money," I could maybe accept that for myself (I disagree, but sure, I might not fully understand all these random economic theories thrown out). Some of the experts I am referring to literally have degrees in Economics and/or have connections to actual economists. So I would find it difficult to accept that they don't understand the concepts that random members of a basketball forum understand. But hey, if you're that confident in your knowledge and understanding, good for you!

I actually don't really agree with some of your claims/counters, but as I alluded to, I don't think there's much point in doing this kind of discussion. I genuinely appreciate the effort and thought you put into this though.

For the podcasts I'm referring to, they literally discuss ALL things that are very early. That's actually kinda the point of the discussions. One of them even has a "Guide to the Future!" Given the topics they discuss, which can take years if not decades to become mainstream, I don't think this is a particularly compelling argument.

I vaguely recall some progressive arguments, but I'm not aware of this one. I'll take a look later.

That said, I'm not surprised if "a" progressive thinks Bitcoin is great. There are progressives that think Trump is great, Putin is great, China is great, climate change is a hoax, etc. At a glance, the guy in the podcast is a secondary school math teacher, and I'm not sure I see much associated with him besides this Bitcoin stuff. My preference would be for leaders/experts in the field to be presenting these arguments (as I'd assume they were also convinced).

I do agree about BTC's libertarian roots...which isn't a good thing IMO (and maybe why these "benefits" aren't convincing to me...as I don't really view them as benefits). I can understand the appeal of BTC with that world view, but it doesn't make nearly as much sense to me otherwise. But maybe that video will change my mind.

Sure...but like presumably things would all be better if we could accelerate that adoption vs delaying it due to this apparent lack of understanding? Based on claims here, we could be talking about lives being saved (or least quality of life being better).

As a point of emphasis, many of the sources I've listed basically make a living educating the masses about complex ideas. Vaccines, climate change, wars and foreign policy, etc. They frequently discuss the challenges involved in trying to get people to understand these things, especially when there's loads of misinformation out there. By and large, they don't seem to take the "well people are just too dumb/lazy, and I don't have time to explain it" approach (outside of maybe a few cynical moments). Instead, they reflect on the situation and try to figure out better ways to get that information out to people.

Conversely, in this thread (and in some other BTC circles), I *do* commonly see this attitude of "well clearly you just don't get it." People are free to do what they want, but the point I'm making is that this is a shitty way of promoting your idea. If this stuff is as legit as advertised, Bitcoin folks need to invest strongly in better educators because the current ones...suck to be blunt. Ideally convincing one of the ones I listed would be a nice start.

On a related note, since we love popular quotes/sayings in this thread, I'll throw out the maybe-from-Albert-Einstein-but-probably-not quote of "If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough." It is just a random internet quote, so I'm not claiming it is some magical proof of anything, but it is an idea I think about when I see some of the things shared here.


---------------------------

I don't really have time to respond to some follow up things posted here, though I think my general point should suffice for now.

 

Fair enough

I appreciate you bringing the important conversation to the forefront.

What I have discovered is that its not the 1000's of hours I put in Bitcoin, but its the amount of time I've put in studying history of money. No, I don't have a "degree" in this subject, however this is a very abstract discussion. Its akin to one saying since they have a degree in art or philosophy, that makes them a better artist and philosopher than the one who never pursued a degree.

Case in point: 2008 GFC. The dying words were "We didnt see it coming". At the age of 23 (well over 2 decades ago), I was offered a 250k mortgage (closer to 600k+ in todays terms) with no income verification, simply because I had a good credit score. I remember thinking to myself why would they ever offer me such a large mortgage to someone who could not afford $400 in rent at the time. Stupid. 3-4 years later, I noticed banks all of sudden offering ARM's to anyone and everyone, including sub-prime. Again, I thought WTF. I knew little about finance (good job institutional education! You taught me well). But I chalked it up to the 'experts' know better. I surely didn't know but it certainly didn't make sense to me!

So I will pose the following questions to you:
-What does it mean to you when I tell you entitlements (SS, Medicare, ect..) are headed to exceed 100% of GDP and continue to rise for the foreseeable future?
-What does it mean to you when I tell you the interest payments on national debt roughly equals military spending?
-What does it mean to you when I tell you birthrates are declining and retirees are climbing (in the US)?

I don't believe the $USD is going to explode. However I do believe the rest of the world will significantly reduce buying our debt and it will become very painful for Americans. The days of cheap money is coming to an end.

 

This was my point was well very early on. "will the average joe care.."
SO FAR. the answer is no.

sending people out into wild to make them read technical guides and benefits / risks of something is just not going to happen. where exactly does someone find legitimate unbiased info? you look anything up for crypto (btc or not) you will run into a million hits by sites that benefit from promoting crypto.

does anyone need to make people aware? not really
but that means adoption will not be there.

 

Bitcoin is in the top 15 most valuable assets in the world by market cap. This is objectively stupid to say on your part.

 

it's objectively stupid for you to not understand what the words "average joe" means.

 

I know you don't really care, but there has been a lot of rumors institutional investors have been buying up bitcoin. Paypal is looking to use BTC for a settlement layer. This all could be irrelevant.
There are also multiple groups looking to offer spot ETF's. If this is approved, then the average joe very well could be interested in bitcoin. The custody issue is solved.

 

On the 2008 issue, I think there's a bit of revisionist history and maybe faulty assumptions (i.e., "experts didn't see it coming, but maybe I did!"). I'm not an expert on the matter, but my understanding is that in general, it is difficult to predict recessions (at least these more complicated ones), so I'm not surprised that most economists didn't see this coming exactly.

To that point, I think part of the reason they didn't see it was due to lack of regulations around this all. I'm guessing there would certainly be some thinking that a lack of regulation would bring about a certain amount of risk for something like that, though I was too young/inexperienced at the time to know if that was conventional thinking at the time (also too vague of an idea to try to fact check retroactively I think). Kinda like virologists didn't predict the COVID outbreak specifically, but I can't imagine they didn't see the potential risk of such an event with the right circumstances.

More generally, even if experts didn't see that coming (i.e., "EXPERTS WERE WRONG!!!"), I think my preference is to still defer to the experts. Not that you were saying this specifically, but I don't want this to be seen as "well the experts were wrong about this, so don't believe them about anything!" I think there's way too much of that kind of thinking going around these days (e.g., "Optometry is a scam! Do you own research!"). If you could convince a Paul Krugman, Ben McKenzie, Heather Boushey, etc., I think things would be much more effective.

As is, I'm guessing these folks have been exposed to all of this stuff already. I'm just a dude on a Rockets forum, and I've been exposed to all of these ideas about how money works and should work. I find it hard to believe these folks don't know of these things, which then tells me they are likely aware of it all...and thus aren't convinced. And I'll continue to defer to them (generally speaking).

A couple of points:
* What I think doesn't really matter (at least for the sake of the point I'm making).
* I actually have fairly unorthodox views on these matters, though I'm trending more mainstream the more I self-reflect. So...even more so, my opinion might not be that valuable.

Generally speaking, I agree there are problems with the current system as noted. However, I don't necessarily come to the same conclusion as others that Bitcoin is the solution for these problems. Overly simplified, but these claims sound like "Our current system (with fiat and everything) is bad, therefore Bitcoin." I think I've even noted you and others saying maybe Bitcoin won't fix these issues, but it might be the best proposed solution. I don't agree with the latter, but I can appreciate the honesty accepting there could be other (better?) solutions. It is possible to be against both Bitcoin and the current systems in place in the world today.

Personally, I'd prefer tweaks to the current system vs a radical change like Bitcoin (or if we did go with a radical change, I'd probably prefer something...not-Bitcoin). But again...I don't think my personal views really matter for the larger discussion at hand. Go after some bigger fish than me.

 

That's progress for sure.

There are asset classes that are worth billions that never make it to daily use by average joe. Well it does, it will be a big deal.

But investors buying up bitcoin......i have my doubts about how it benefits the regular person.

 

@DonnyMost You spent a fair share of time replying, but my reply would be a lot longer. We can take this chain over DMs if you're still vested.

The last thirty odd years can be considered another "Roaring Twenties" even with the GFC in the middle. Despite profligate money printing by the US, it's comparatively better than any other period in Global History. We got off the gold standard around the 70s. If the 40s-70s was the US's Golden Age, I'd still pick this era over dem Good Ol Days.

General macro suggests a lot of limitations. The US has come a long way since post Bretton Woods.

I have a chatbot discussion over this in detail and many other things covered in this reply that sometimes sounds French to me.

If anyone's interested in that, DM me.

 

"Average joe" is a stupid, immaterial metric that he purposefully picked so he could move the goalposts around and never have to make any type of concrete, declarative statement or prediction because he is a coward who knows next to nothing about this subject.

Bitcoin is worth $500 billion. That's more than Walmart, Coke, and Toyota. Hell, this thread itself is the 4th most active in the history of this website. GTFO with this "nobody cares" bullshit.